Bovinephobia & Stranded in Cong

(The cows) Not really these were painted cows in NYC, i took a photo of them for Sara, not as good as shepperton!!
(The Gods of Neale in the old river bed the cows are behind it)


Well I've had an adventuous weekend in the tiny village of Cong. Cong is a small town in Co. Mayo, between two large lakes, it's really pretty here green, stone fences everywhere, I love it.

I arrived in Cong late Saturday night after a minor breakdown with the bus. In true irish sprit the first thing you do is search out the local pub. What a hoot. It was the first installment of the international match, and for the first time since arriving in Dublin not another Aussie in sight, so I had no back up support. The Aussies kicked a 3 pointer I got up and cheered, and the whole pub went silent (the only one cheering in a crowd of over 60 irish kind of made me stand out) They thought it was an absolute craic that I was an Australian, not many tourists come to Cong. However it's suffices to say I did not have to buy another drink for the whole night!. I was getting quite cockey when the aussies were up till the last 30 seconds. So then I stayed, drank, and got merry with the locals, it was exactly what I imagined Ireland to be. Brilliant.

On Sunday I decided to check out some of the many sights around the town. I walked to a place called Neale to see an ancient stone carving called the Gods of Neale. It was a 5km walk to Neale from Cong, and I ran into another local who knew a whole bunch of history about his town. It was great like my own personal tour guide. He told me how to find the Gods of Neale and uttered the words Carmen Thomson never wants to hear "der may be a wee few cows in de paddock, but dey wont not harm ye". I was not walking 5km up the road to see nothing and walk back. So I went. Bravely I entered the paddock, tripping over all the cow holes in the ground searching for this stupid monument, cows staring at me, and then the cows started running, all of them, at once, like a good 30 cattle moving towards the poor girl petrified of all cattle. So so did I ...... mud everywhere, slippery wet mud all the way up my legs, over my boots, never run so fast before in my life. I came across an old building ruin, which I hoped the cows could not enter. But then I discovered I was stuck. The cows had surrounded the building, just waiting for me, I stood frozen for like 20 min with no idea of what to do stranded in a building ruin surrounded by cows. Lucky I could see the funny side of it, but I was not risking my life by leaving my safe haven. Eventually the cows moved...... to the gate, the only exit in the paddock and the cows were at it, I think these animals are much smarter then we give them credit for. I saw an old riverbed covered with trees, down the hill where the cows could not see me. I ran, ran down the hill between the trees over rocks, mud, puddles, through thorn bushes and there there in the riverbed was the Gods of Neale, I found it! Hurrah my adventure was not all of a waste. Then the cows found me, mooing and running towards me again I just bolted. I found a wall/fence (most of the paddock fences a stone walls) Climbed it and I was free! Bloodied, hot sweaty, muddy heart beating so fast but I was free. Hurrah, never been so happy to see a road in my life.

This day I also tried Falconry. It was amazing I had a harris hawk on my arm called Wexford, and I could get it to fly away, come back, and swoop right to me, it was just fantastic. Those animals are really smart, and a lot safer then cows. (I think a bird of prey is safer then a cow, must be the only one in the history of the world).

Monday I got up early to travel back to Dublin (6.30am) I walked into Cong with my massive pack, waiting for the bus that never showed. At 9 am I called the bus company only to find out no busses were going to Galway from Cong due to the bank holiday. Oh my lord realisation set in 'I'm stranded in Cong!!!'. I asked some people around the hostel if they were going to Galway, no luck. I called the bus company back and found out I could catch a bus from another town 10km away. Cong, a town smaller then Beaufort has it's own taxi service, Perhaps a entrenperneer in Beaufort could look into this? So myself and some other stranded girls from europe caught a taxi to Ballinrobe and I finally got out of Cong.

An adventurous weekend and a jolly good laugh, I wonder what my next adventure will bring me.

For those of you who have not caught the latest news I'm going to have a white christmas I'm so excited. For one week during christmas I'm going snowboarding in the french alps. Gonna be a fabulous time I'm sure!!!!

Keep in touch everyone, hope to hear from you soon, please tell me some gossip as I'm having withdrawls, surely something exciting is happening in your dreery dull lives, unless all the excitement in your lives is in Ireland????

Luv yas
Carmen

It's my blog I can do what I want!!!!!!

Don't forget anyone can make comment on the postings, so make comments, tell me how you all are and how much fun you are all having without me!!!

Ok now ireland...... I guess (I do like it but no good photos)

This is St Stephens Green shopping center, I worked close to here in my first week. You have to pay 20 cents to pee here !!!

even more, still missing it

More canadian photos, because I loved it so so much,and miss it so so much

This is the Giant buffalo, that they took out the back, shot and made into a burger for me for tea!!

Our group on a very cold canadian morning infront of Peyto lake

Fancy office girl

So............... you asked for it!!! me! all dressed up! (Ok so I'm not in a suit, but I have two suits, plus this smick outfit, and a couple of other things I can throw together for 5 outfits, one for every day of the week! how jazzy am I, get ready guys a fancy new girl is comming home!!!
(I wish i was still wearing my purple crocks:()

Smoking, Stockings, Stairs and Gay Guys

Hi everyone, I hope your all enjoying your heat wave in Australia, I'm still wearing my shorts and thongs here, although absolutely no one else is. Hope life is well with everyone at home, and that you are all up to very exciting things.

Well it's been an eventful few days I can tell you all. I've got a long term job woo hoo, they proposed 3 months to me, but I am NOT staying in the city for three months. It's been two weeks, and thats too much. So I'm not sure how long I'll stay there but it will be at least a month to make some money. I start Monday. It's at a teachers university called St Pats College. Just office work, but it looks like a really nice place, and it's about a 30 min walk from my hostel, or a 10min bus ride, so thats cool. Still in a suit, still looking swanky, still living out of a backpack!

Next weekend I'm going out to the countryside for a nice hike around the so called mountains here (more like hills). I'm over the people and the cigarettes. Everyone smokes, and blows it in your face, and are really rude about it. Cigarette butts are all over the street, and all my clothes stink of smoke just by walking down the street, yuck.

I'm having fun in my hostel, being in the staff room is great, I feel a little more a ease with it. Things I like about my hosel:
- I have a bottom bunk, woo hoo they are so precious here and I've got one it's brilliant
- The staff are great, they all hate the work but love the people
Things I don't like:
- I have to go up 61 steps to go to bed each night
- The cards in the place loose their magnetic charge really quickly and you can't get back into your room, I got caught out in bare feet and little clothing the other day and had to run down the street to reception to get my key charged, not the greatest idea at 10pm in cold dublin.
- Cold showers, no one needs that.

Friday night my friends and I went out on the town and found ourselves at a gay bar, very interesting night. Gay people are hilarious, and very random. I had to ask a staff member if there were female toilets in the building because the bar is just for guys. Dumb question I know, but made the attendant laugh a lot. The club lets gay guys and any girls in but strait boys are not supposed to go in. They get around this (why a strait guy would want to go in is beyond my reason but anyways) two girls would escort one strait guy in, they never questioned it. I met some very interesting guys and everything I said was foot in the mouth, but they loved it. I've met a great range of people here, it's brilliant, but missing my loved ones at home.

I've realised here all the ladies wear stockings, I now know what the guys fascination with stockings are here, and I'll have to find myself a pair!!(You have to come to the country to know the secret) And martin, there is underwear here that geoff could easily swallow, so that makes sense too!

Everything I know about the country of UK and Ireland is from Bridget Jones, not an ideal model to follow but it's piss funny when stuff happens and it's like bridget's life, I love it.

Thats enough rambling for a Sunday afternoon, think of me tomorrow morning going to my new job! Don't forget to make some comments on my blogs so I can read what you are all thinking about the clueless aussie lost in a world of green and wet!!

luv y'all

Carmen
xxxooo

Irish Girls vs an Aussie Girl

Well for the past week I've been working at an organisation called ESB international. I was a receptionist for an electiricity company. 'I'm excited about electricity even if your not' TXU ad, come on people!

I'm sure the people at the company are sick of me asking 'can you spell that?' when the irish speak their f's sound like d's s's sound like f's and d's sound like s's or something like that, no bloody idea what half of them want me to do. After tomorrow they can all rest at ease.

I've noticed a lot about the general public after being here for 12 days, half of dublin is foreigners due to their european work policies, and so instead of what I expected and people being like 'wow your australian' their more like 'oh another fecking forigner taking all our money.' Oh yeah they say fecking

I think I stand out though. Irish girls are very different from aussies. They are not very nice, many of them smoke, they are short, skinny and have no breasts. The fashion over here is amazing, people wear everything and anything and it always looks fabulous. Unlike my straight out of a rucksack appearence.

But on the plus side I'm in red head heaven. So many lovely red headded irish boys here it's brilliant! yay.

The Irish saying i've picked up on here is "thanks a mil" this is not just thanks but thanks times a million, thats how much they appreciate what you do. The problem is everyone says it so sometimes i wonder is a thanks really worth it when it's a million times over?

So latest plan....... I've got tickets to the international match on the 5th of November. My plan is to stick to Dublin till then, after the 5th jump on a tour bus and travel around Ireland, see some of the countryside, the smaller towns and the sites, after all that's why I came. Then when I return go to some of my favourite places and search for some work. I want to work behind a bar, or get some hotel work somewhere, so I may have to bend the truth on the experience, but we will see. After backpacking around and working here and there I should have enough savings to see the UK.

Everyone I've met has been travelling for a long time before, are older, and are total city slickers, no one wants to go outside of dublin. To be honest I'm missing home terribly, and everyone who's travelling say the first month is the hardest, so two weeks to go and I should be out of the rutt. I refuse to come home though!!! sticking it out till it gets better, otherwise I won't have good memories of Ireland, and that won't be good.

Wish me luck for my next career move I'm unsure of where or what it is yet but know it won't be far away.

To leave you all on a good note the beer is great here, I love it!

Working Class Girl

Well Well Well, I've officially settled into Dublin life, today in just under 8 hours I have a job, and a permanent place to stay as long as I wish. Woo Hoo yay me.

I got a call at 9.15 on Monday morning to ask if I could work as a receptionist for the day, then half an hour later I find out it's for the week. It's a pretty dull job, but money all the same, and I finally have something to do other then wander the streets of Dubling lonely and wet.

Then, after work I check into my hostel and ask if there is permanant residency here. There is and turns out I'm staying in the staff room. So it's gonna be pretty good there too. only 85 euros per week, which is way cheeper then many of the shared rooms I've looked at and have not got, I can stay as long as I want, and I can finally apply for my PPS number which means I can get paid, have a bank account and pay tax! (It also means I get a rebate)

Finally I have some routine, don't have to move every second or third day, and have some money coming in. Very accomplished Monday for me!!!

Might have a beer to celebrate

Goodnight, sweet dreems or good morning have a great day!!

This day we went Jet boating in Montreal. If your ever in Montreal it is a must do..... Got very wet, Very sick, and very dizzy. Why wouldn't you do it!!

Wet Ireland

I've arrived in the land of the green!! And unlike New York I never got lost finding my hostel. I left a nice hot sunny Seattle early Saturday morning, and flew to Dublin at 8.30 in the morning on a Sunday, being greeted by grey sky and rain, hip hip hooray I must be near the UK!!!!

The Hostel seems to be a little dodgy compaired to previous accommodation. The showers are cold, the dorms are like 16beds, and I could not check in untill 2pm, so had to walk around the streets of Ireland with no shower& no sleep.

But thats OK! I figure I'll give myself a week to set myself up. First a Job, then a house, got my priorities straight??

As it is a Sunday everything here seems to be shut! So tomorrow I begin my new life as a backpacker finding any work I can.

A french girl in my room is doing the same as me, she has a job, and had a flat but something happened and now she doesn't. So I guess we could work something out with another couple of people, average looks t0 be between 300 and 350 euros a month, Dublin seems kind of expensive. Don't really know how long I'm going to be here, not really a city girl, but I'll give it a go. Hey, I'm the girl who ate Buffalo.

Great things about Ireland:
-They don't try to disguise the toilet as something else, americans called it a bathroom, canadians washroom, for gods sake people it's a toilet!
- The drive on the aussie side of the road in the aussie side of the car. Can't get run over in this country by looking the wrong way!!
-Nothing is automatic thank goodness. In the US everything was Toilets, showers, taps, handdryers, pedestrian crossings,I can push buttons again hurrah.
-I brought a loaf of bread, 4 bananas, pasta sauce and pasta for just over three euros, what cheap food.

Hearing nothing of news from home slack bumbs, come on pick up and let me know some things that have been going down in Ballarat/Beaufort.

One last thing since I left home I have been eating an average of two bananas a day, my reputation on the last trip was monkey girl, and I'm loving the price of bananas, I could send them home to you for cheeper then you would be paying woo hoo bananas.

Well hope to year from you all very soon

Luv Carmen
xxxooo